Powers of the Psalms

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b Maskil is probably a musical or liturgical term; used for Psalms 32, 42, 44–45, 52–55, 74, 78, 88–89, and 142. Psalm 7 (along with Habakkuk chapter 3) [68] bears the title shigayon ( שיגיון). There are three interpretations: [69] (a) According to Rashi and others, this term stems from the root shegaga, meaning "mistake"—David committed some sin and is singing in the form of a prayer to redeem himself from it; (b) shigayon was a type of musical instrument; (c) Ibn Ezra considers the word to mean "longing", as for example in the verse in Proverbs 5:19 [70] tishge tamid.

b This psalm is an acrostic poem, each verse beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The Psalms can be employed in many contexts, but this list gives some brief ideas of how each can be utilized in witchcraft, hoodoo, conjure, rootwork

Six Psalms ( 16, 56– 60) have the title michtam ( מכתם, 'gold'). [66] Rashi suggests that michtam refers to an item that a person carries with him at all times, hence, these Psalms contain concepts or ideas that are pertinent at every stage and setting throughout life, deemed vital as part of day-to-day spiritual awareness. [67] Doerr, Nan Lewis; Owens, Virginia Stem (28 August 2007). Praying with Beads: Daily Prayers for the Christian Year. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p.viii. ISBN 978-0-8028-2727-2. Over the centuries, the use of complete Psalms in the liturgy declined. After the Second Vatican Council (which also permitted the use of vernacular languages in the liturgy), longer psalm texts were reintroduced into the Mass, during the readings. The revision of the Roman Missal after the Second Vatican Council reintroduced the singing or recitation of a more substantial section of a Psalm, in some cases an entire Psalm, after the first Reading from Scripture. This Psalm, called the Responsorial Psalm, is usually sung or recited responsorially, although the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 61 permits direct recitation.

The variance between Masorah and Septuagint texts in this numeration is likely enough due to a gradual neglect of the original poetic form of the Psalms; such neglect was occasioned by liturgical uses and carelessness of copyists. It is generally admitted that Psalms 9 and 10 (Hebrew numbering) were originally a single acrostic poem, wrongly separated by Massorah and rightly united by the Septuagint and the Vulgate. [11] Psalms 42 and 43 (Hebrew numbering) are shown by identity of subject (yearning for the house of Yahweh), of metrical structure and of refrain (comparing Psalms 42:6, 12; 43:5, Hebrew numbering), to be three strophes of one and the same poem. The Hebrew text is correct in counting as one Psalm 146 and Psalm 147. Later liturgical usage would seem to have split up these and several other psalms. Zenner combines into what he deems were the original choral odes: Psalms 1, 2, 3, 4; 6 + 13; 9 + 10; 19, 20, 21; 56 + 57; 69 + 70; 114 + 115; 148, 149, 150. [12] A choral ode would seem to have been the original form of Psalms 14 and 70. The two strophes and the epode are Psalm 14; the two antistrophes are Psalm 70. [13] It is noteworthy that, on the breaking up of the original ode, each portion crept twice into the Psalter: Psalm 14 = 53, Psalm 70 = 40:14–18. Other such duplicated portions of psalms are Psalm 108:2–6 = Psalm 57:8–12; Psalm 108:7–14 = Psalm 60:7–14; Psalm 71:1–3 = Psalm 31:2–4. This loss of the original form of some of the psalms is considered by the Catholic Church's Pontifical Biblical Commission (1 May 1910) to have been due to liturgical practices, neglect by copyists, or other causes. [14] ReadPsalms and find out – the psalms reveal a wide range of emotion from pure joy (Psalm 150) to utter despair (Psalm 88) with many points between. Other books set around this time Verse numbers were first printed in 1509. [15] [16] Different traditions exist whether to include the original heading into the counting or not. This leads to inconsistent numbering in 62 psalms, with an offset of 1, sometimes even 2 verses. [17] Additional psalms [ edit ] The standard Hebrew text divides the Psalms into five “books,” perhaps in imitation of the five books of the Pentateuch. Book 1 Kselman, John S. (2007). "Psalms". In Coogan, Michael David; Brettler, Marc Zvi; Newsom, Carol Ann (eds.). The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-528880-3.There are good reasons to doubt the authenticity of these ascriptions, however. In the first place, some of the psalms that are ascribed to David could not have been spoken by him for historical reasons: they mention the Temple, which was not built in David’s time but in that of his son, Solomon. Even more egregiously, some are clearly set in the context of the Babylonian exile—here Psalm 137, “By the waters of Babylon we lay down and wept for thee, O Zion,” is a clear example. The General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, 122 sanctions three modes of singing/recitation for the Psalms: